Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Run, Bike, Rant

Run 4 milesRoad Bike 31.5 miles

After almost no biking in January and February I've been doing a decent amount of biking for just over 3 weeks now and today I finally felt my "biking muscles" responding the way I would like them to. I hit the road north after work and was feeling great right away. I kept telling myself not to go too far because the wind was at my back and when I turned around I was going to wish I had done so a lot sooner. As usual though, I didn't listen to myself but kept coasting along at 20+ mph with very little effort. When I did turn around I felt the wind hit me like a wall but I quickly noticed that I had the strength to push against this wall and maintain a decent speed. I rode most of the way back above 15 mph and felt as though I were just getting warmed up when I pulled into our neighborhood.

It would have been nice to stay out awhile longer but I was hungry and I reminded myself that my next serious race is at least 12 weeks away and the last thing I need to do right now is overwork and burn out before my summer races even get started. So far now the plan is to stick with very slow increases in mileage and intensity. Of course I'll probably push myself too far or too fast one of these days soon and then I'll just have to change the plan. In reality this is the way my training typically goes anyhow. My "plan" more often than not doesn't present itself until after I'm already most of the way through a training cycle. I typically just go with what I feel and then pretend to myself that it was all part of some "plan" all along. I guess this is my way of trying to convince myself that I actually know what I'm doing, that there's more to it than just going out and doing what I love to do and letting things unfold from there.

[Political rant to follow, feel free to stop reading now]

I know this is my training blog, but once again Alaska state politics has my blood boiling and now that I have a blog I can write about it so I don't have to complain about it to Jill a dozen times (a half dozen should be adequate now). Yesterday there was a statewide advisory vote to determine whether the people of Alaska would like the state legislature to pursue an amendment to the state constitution that would ban same sex partners of state employees from receiving state benefits packages which are currently provided to all state employees and their partners. 54% of voters said yes that they would like the legislature to pursue this constitutional amendment. Yes, you did just read that correctly: 54% of Alaskans do not believe that same sex couples should be treated with financial equality! Why is it that people feel such a need to force their personal opinions on homosexuality into public laws limiting other people of equal rights and freedoms? When you raise the bar to the issue of gay marriage you have the typical defense that allowing gays to marry will diminish the significance of heterosexual marriages. Although I in no way agree with this logic, at least it is a reason, no matter how thin the ice is that supports it. This particular issue that was voted on here in Alaska yesterday though has no logical defense for those that voted in favor of it. That is unless you consider intolerance and bigotry to be logical defenses. I've never really liked red-heads all that much. Maybe I can try to convince the Alaska State Legislature to ban partners of red-headed state employees from receiving state benefits. Oh wait, my hair is kind of red. And my Mom's. And my sister's. You might think I'm oversimplifying this issue, but then when you stop and think about it, am I?